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Saturday, October 5, 2013

Garry Winogrand (1928–1984) was a street photographer known for his portrayal of the United States in the mid-20th century

Garry
Winogrand (14 January 1928, New York City – 19
March 1984, Tijuana, Mexico) was a street
photographer known for his portrayal of the United States in the
mid-20th century. John Szarkowski called him the central
photographer of his generation.

Winogrand
was known for his portrayal of American life in the early 1960s. Many
of his photographs depict the social issues of his time and in the
role of media in shaping attitudes. Winogrand's photographs of
the Bronx Zoo and the Coney Island Aquarium made
up his first book The Animals (1969), a collection of
pictures that observes the connections between humans and animals.
His book Public Relations (1977) shows press conferences,
protesters beaten by cops, and museum parties. In Stock
Photographs (1980), Winogrand published his views of the Fort
Worth Fat Stock Show and Rodeo.

At the
time of his death there was discovered about 2,500 rolls of
undeveloped film, 6,500 rolls of developed but not proofed exposures,
and contact sheets made from about 3,000 rolls. The Garry
Winogrand Archive at the Center for Creative Photography (CCP)
comprises over 20,000 fine and work prints, 20,000 contact sheets,
100,000 negatives and 30,500 35mm colour slides as well as a small
group of Polaroid prints and several amateur motion picture films

Biography

Winogrand
grew up in the then predominantly Jewish working-class area of the
Bronx, New York, where his father, Abraham, was a leather worker, and
his mother, Bertha, made neckties for piecemeal work.

Winogrand
studied painting at City College of New York and
painting and photography at Columbia University in
New York City in 1948. He also attended a photojournalism class
taught by Alexey Brodovich at The New School for
Social Research in New York City in 1951.

In the
early 1960s Winogrand photographed on the streets of New York City
alongside Joel Meyerowitz, Lee Friedlander, Tod
Papageorge and Diane Arbus.

In
1955 two of Winogrand's photos appeared in The Family of
Man exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New
York. Winogrand's first one-man show was held at Image Gallery in New
York City in 1959. His first notable appearance was in Five
Unrelated Photographers in 1963, also at MoMA in New York City,
along with Minor White, George Krause, Jerome
Liebling and Ken Heyman. In 1966 Winogrand exhibited at
the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York with Lee
Friedlander, Duane Michals, Bruce Davidson, and Danny
Lyon in an exhibition entitledToward a Social Landscape. In
1967 he participated in the New Documents show at MoMA in
New York City with Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander, curated by John
Szarkowski.

John
Szarkowski, the Director of Photography at New York's Museum of
Modern Art, became an editor and reviewer of Winogrand's work.
Szarkowski called him the central photographer of his generation.

In
1964 Winogrand was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship Award to
travel through America. Some of the results of this work were shown
in the New Documents exhibition. He was awarded his second Guggenheim
Fellowship in 1969 to continue exploring media events and their
effect on the public. Between 1969 and 1976 Winogrand shot about 700
rolls of film at public events, producing 6,500 eleven by fourteen
inch prints for Tod Papageorge to select for the exhibition and
book Public Relations. Winogrand received a National Endowment
for the Arts Fellowship in 1975. In 1979 with his third Guggenheim
Fellowship he moved to Los Angeles to document California.While in LA
he developed 8522 rolls of film.

Winogrand
worked as a commercial photographer between 1952 and 1954 at the Pix
Photo Agency in Manhattan and from 1954 at Brackman Associates.

Between
1971 and 1972 Winogrand taught photography at the Institute of
Design, Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and
between 1973 and 1978 at the University of Texas in Austin.

In
1952 Winogrand married Adrienne Lubeau, separating in 1963 and
divorcing in 1966, they had two children, Laurie and Ethan. Around
1967 Winogrand married his second wife, Judy Teller, they were
together until 1969. In 1972 he married Eileen Adele Hale, with whom
he had a daughter, Melissa.

Winogrand
died of gall bladder cancer, in 1984 at age 56. He left
behind nearly 300,000 unedited images. Some of these images have been
exhibited posthumously, and published by MoMA in the overview of his
work Winogrand, Figments from the Real World.